The right thing to do

If ever you are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I recommend you stop and eat at Harry’s Breakfast Pancakes.

Wait, before you leave me: This is not a restaurant review.

Neither is it a travel journal.

It’s a lesson about sowing and reaping.

Back to Harry’s.

Lori and I were eating what my dad would call a “scrumpdelicious,” breakfast. Guy Fieri likes to use the phrase, “out of bounds.” My breakfast at Harry’s was outstanding, to say the least.

Then Lori scooted a $100 bill across the table.

“We need to break this $100 bill, so pay for breakfast with it, and we’ll have plenty of change.”

So I stuffed the money in my right pocket. Or so I thought.

I had read where if you mention “Pete,” (the owner), when you pay at Harry’s, you will get a 10% discount.

I was at the cash register, spinning a yarn about how I had met “Pete” on the beach and how he had told me to mention his name.

The lady was laughing at my story, or maybe pretending to laugh, when I reached in my pocket.

And I stopped telling my imaginary tale about “Pete.”

You are ahead of my story: The $100 bill wasn’t there.

Before I had time to look shame faced at Lori, I heard our waitress, whose name was Chris, calling out to us. She was waving the $100 in her hand.

It had slipped out of my pocket and was in the booth where I had sat.

After many “thank-you’s,” and a warning from my wife to be more careful, we were happily traveling up the road, back toward our ol’ Kentucky home.

But I couldn’t help but think of Chris, the honest waitress.

Being a waitress can’t be easy. The hours are long and people can be rude. I thought of the song, “She works hard for the money.”

Wouldn’t it have been easy for her to have inconspicuously slipped that $100 bill in her pocket, rush back to the kitchen and wait while I frantically searched for it?

$100 is a nice bonus for most of us, and besides, Chris could have justified keeping it: “I’ll use it for a ‘good’ cause;” “I need to pay bills with this;” “I deserve to make up for all the lousy tips I’ve received;” “That talkative man should be more careful, so maybe this will actually help him.”

Instead, she unhesitatingly brought the money to me.

Why? Did she ponder taking it, even if only for a second or two?

I wondered.

So couple of weeks after we had returned home, I called Harry’s Breakfast Pancakes and asked for Chris.

She immediately remembered the man who had left a $100 bill in the booth.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you give it back?”

“I didn’t want bad karma,” she joked at first.

Then she told the reason beneath the answer: “It was the right thing to do.”

Chris was raised in a home where Christ was present, where her mamma taught Chris to do the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do.

Chris’ comment about karma was not totally awry. I don’t believe in a karma that determines our eternal destiny.

But I do believe in the biblical principle of sowing and reaping.

Paul the Apostle put it like this in Galatians 6:7-8: “Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.

Add a “t” to the end of Chris’ name, and you’ll see the name of the one she is following in doing good. I hope she reaps a fruitful harvest, and I believe she will, if like the Apostle said, she does not get tired of doing good.

And so can you and I, along with and a host of others, who as flawed as we are, yet find hope in the fact that we can change what we are reaping in life by changing what we are sowing.

If nothing else, Chris is reaping a heart full of integrity. My guess is, she can sleep at night with a clear conscience. Not everybody enjoys that.

So, if you are ever down Myrtle Beach way, stop in at Harry’s, mention “Pete,” say hello to Chris, enjoy a wonderful breakfast, and then keep going, for the principle of sowing and reaping is the same everywhere: sow something good along the way and something good will eventually come your way.